Underwood To Headline Global Citizen Festival

Carrie Underwood is among the headliners named for the third annual Global Citizen Festival, a free ticketed concert slated for Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014 on the Great Lawn in New York City’s Central Park.

Underwood will be joined by fellow headliners Jay Z, No Doubt, fun., The Roots, and Tiesto. The festival is part of the Global Citizen movement’s aim to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

MSNBC and NBC News will serve as official media partners for this year’s Festival. For the first time, the festival will air live on television with MSNBC carrying the full concert on cable and msnbc.com. NBC News will produce a one-hour primetime special of the event to air on NBC at 9 p.m. on Sept. 27. MSNBC and NBC News will also highlight the issues surrounding global poverty in the coming months.

Free tickets to the festival are available beginning today (Wednesday, July 9), by fans participating in online actions at globalcitizenfestival.com. Fans take “action” to earn their admission, by signing petitions and emailing world leaders and sharing content on their social networks. These actions earn fans “points” that can be used to enter the prize draw to win free tickets. Ticket draws will occur throughout summer, and fans will be notified via Ticketmaster when they have been selected. A limited number of VIP tickets will also be available for purchase through ticketmaster.com

The Festival coincides with the UN General Assembly and will serve as a platform to call for tangible commitments from world leaders in the areas of vaccines, education and sanitation. Major campaigns tied to this year’s Festival include: securing contributions for the GAVI Alliance and the Global Partnership for Education, and building momentum by citizens for the Water for the World Act, a Congressional bill that will support efforts to benefit the 1.25 billion women and girls that currently go without safe access to sanitation.